Social Justice

Jess Parrott 812

Social Justice: Allegiant by Veronica Roth

The book Allegiant by Veronica Roth is set in a dystopian future. Naturally, there are many social justice issues. Tris and Tobias face and try to conquer issues like revealing truth and fighting for equality. And many of these issues, alike to the latter, are very close to what all humanity deals with today.

In Allegiant, there are major social justice issues concerning inequality. When Tris and her friends find out about and are sucked into the world of the Bureau, there is a world of controversial inequality uncovered. I think that the relationship between the genetically damaged (GDs) and the genetically perfect (GPs) compares realistically to the relationship between the top 1% (in wealth) in our nation and the 99%. In the rallies and uprisings concerning Occupy Wall Street, the 99% (compare to the GDs) criticize the 1% (GPs) for various reasons including that the 1% are, rationally, not taxed equally compared to the 99%. GDs rose up against the Bureau, and importantly, the GPs, because they were being exploited but also treated unfairly because of reasons like a GD could be convicted of a crime much easier than a GP even if they were in the same situation. This particular example reminds me of the black codes; put into effect during the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War. Laws that in most cases were not legal because of racial divisions were restricting freedmen. And like the GDs, they could be convicted of crimes much easier. 

            The topic of social justice also arises in Allegiant when Tris and Tobias (and their friends) find out the Bureau has access to the security cameras that the Dauntless has placed strategically throughout the city. When they find out that they have been being watched their whole lives; a question of security comes up in their thoughts almost constantly. The fact that they had been being watched constantly had a very big effect on them in a way that showed their negative response. This reminds me of the clash that the NSA is constantly having with public America. In a way alike to the WikiLeaks program, the widespread public is recently finding out more about what the NSA has access to; including phone details and conversations. Alike to Tris, Tobias, and their friends, a large portion of public America has an uneasy reaction to this new discovery. I think that this is a form of social justice because the government, in both cases, is having very personal monitoring systems on the public that the public doesn’t know about. And alike to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and other whistle blowers, it is very easy to agree that this is socially unjust.

            The aforementioned Julian Assange and his organization, WikiLeaks, reminds me of a certain part in the book Insurgent that comes directly before Allegiant in the Divergent trilogy. When Tris allies with Marcus to help unveil the Edith Prior video to the public, it reminds me of how Julian Assange helped reveal many secret government documents to the public. Both Assange and Tris were trying to fix a form of social injustice by revealing secrets kept by the government to prove and fight for what they felt was right. I think that Tris had similar motives as Assange and that in their situations; they have a lot in common. But there were both big cons to both situations. When Assange revealed some of the last very big and important documents he had direct control over in WikiLeaks, many government officials and others’ lives were at stake. By revealing this information that he felt was right to do he, in a way, mindlessly was putting many lives in danger. And it was almost the identical situation in Insurgent when the video caused an uprising among the faction members and drove them to commit violence against the government. But a very important detail that differs from these two situations is that in one of them, Assange’s associates and newspapers redacted the information; saving many lives. And in the other case, that did not happen.

            The book Allegiant, and the rest of the Divergent trilogy have many intricate plotlines that relate to social justice today.